Greater Ministries trial finally came to conclusion and the sentencing became public in the Tampa Tribune on August 7, 2001. Gerald Payne, founder of Greater Ministries International Church, received a 27-year sentence from a U.S. District Judge who called the church's fraudulent investment program "absolutely despicable."

Betty Payne, the founder's wife, received a sentence of 12 years and seven months - longer than she faced before she angered the judge by repeating a declaration portraying her and her husband as victims of a zealous government... The church claimed international trades and lucrative mining ventures fueled a money-doubling financial program, but prosecutors proved it was a Ponzi scheme that paid established investors with money from recent investors.

The Judge asks where did the religious fraud's millions, to the tune of $500 million during the 90s, go? Who has it? These questions have not been answered. Mr. Talbert was an elder at Greater Ministries International Church and worked with its legal and trust departments. This scheme drew more than 18,000 investors. [One couple invested over $200,000, their life's savings, and lost every penny.] Talbert is 53 and serving a 10-year sentence in state prison for an unrelated charge of racketeering and conspiracy conviction. He tried to claim diplomatic immunity as an ambassador from the Kingdom of Heaven. (The Tampa Tribune, August 9, 2001) One of the culprits involved snitched to get a lesser sentence and said that over a million dollars is stashed in a bank in Mexico.(The Tampa Tribune, August 9, 2001)

Rev. Lyons recently divorced his wife to set her free. She never did come to visit him in jail.